Chandelier

From day one of owning this house we’ve disliked the chandelier that hung in the foyer of the house. It was old, dirty and impossible to clean. Eventually we plan to replace it, but we haven't been in any hurry to make the switch since we have so many other priorities. However, in the meantime I decided to give it a face lift so that we didn’t have to stare at the dirt every time we walked through the room.









I spent a couple of weeks, prepping, priming and painting. For the prepwork I had to get pretty creative. I knew it would be very difficult to paint the chain and electrical cord at the top of the fixture so I decided to not paint them at all and cover them with a paper bag and tape. I plugged the light sockets with cotton balls to prevent them from getting painted.


















The setup was unconventional, but it worked. I placed two ladders about five feet apart and ran a 2x4 between them. I covered the concrete below and the ladders (as best as I could) with a tarp. The chandelier was suspended with a metal chain secured at the top with a padlock. Every time I moved the chandelier from the house to outside I had to unlock the padlock to release the chain.





















The priming portion of the process went well and I was really happy with the intermediate results.














However, once the painting started I ran into a couple of snafoos. The first being that I didn’t allow the primer long enough to adhere to the glass portion of the chandelier. The spray can said to allow 4-6 days for adhesion to plastic and 24 hours for everything else. However, it really should say 4-6 days for all materials. After a successful priming job I waited 24 hours and then started to paint it. Immediately when the paint hit the glass portion of the chandelier, the primer began to crack and tear. I was a little taken back, because there wasn’t much I could do to save it at that point. This is also the moment when I realized that the plum color I had planned to use was actually closer to fuchsia and I knew Dan would flip when he saw it. I decided at that point to just stop altogether and let it dry. I was a little stressed during this whole time so I didn't think to take photos of the problems.





Once it was dry to the touch I reprimed over the purple and the areas that had cracked. I then waited a full seven days before dragging it back outside to paint. This time I switched the color to Plan "B", which was Rust-Oleum Claret Wine.










Plan "A"-Plum










Plan "B"-Claret Wine








The second time around the painting went much better as I was pleased to find that the primer did adhere to the glass surface and the paint took really well. I ended up putting about three coats on it before being satisfied. Once it was dry I reattached the crystal pieces and hung it back up in the foyer.





And the result is below. The camera flash makes it look really red, but the lighting in the foyer is dimmer so it does look closer to the color that it is suppose to look like. In person I would say it looks like a dark red/cranberry.










































Overall, I’m super happy with the way it turned out. Dan was very skeptical at first, but he liked it enough to let me rehang it in the entry way. Eventually we’ll replace it with something we both really like, but in the meantime it looks great and livens up the entrance to the house.